“Mary Poppins Returns” is an uninventive, nostalgic update to the original. While the star power and breezy plot might be enough to satisfy most moviegoers, closer inspection reveals a patched kite that could have flown much higher.

Gliding down by umbrella from the oodles of millions her and husband John Krasinski made in “A Quiet Place,” Emily Blunt takes on the role of Mary Poppins who has returned to the now adult Banks children, Michael (Ben Whishaw) and Jane (Emily Mortimer). Mary Poppins joins a lamplighter, Jack (Lin-Manuel Miranda), in shepherding Michael Banks’ children who have found themselves essentially orphaned with a deceased mother and artist father who has ineptly led the family into foreclosure. Michael and Jane spend the larger part of the film ineffectively trying to locate their father’s bank stock certificates to save the family home.